Blood, Sweat, and Millennial Tears
It cost more than money to build this year’s Dream Machine
DREAM MACHINE 2017, you have ruined me. Five whole days of planning, stripping, drilling, installing, reworking, and rebuilding one of the biggest and most advanced systems I’ve ever worked on have left me mentally destroyed. It is certainly a thing of beauty, and an absolute beast of a machine, beyond anything I’ve ever worked on, but is it the Dream Machine for me? Ironically, probably not.
If you’ve been following my musings for a while now, you’ll know I am wholeheartedly dedicated to the ITX and microATX form factors. Bigger isn’t always better for me, and although the power toiling away within the bowels of this year’s DM is incredible, there’s little here that would affect my day-to-day activities in any meaningful manner, outside of the GPUs. However, if I want to migrate to a smaller rig than the ATX tower I have in my own home, the problem is two-fold: It all comes down to cases and processors. In short, for my next system, I’m craving a Ryzen eight-core CPU (preferably the Ryzen 7 1700)—problem is, there are very few motherboards on the X370 platform, in that form factor, and fewer still that operate well and look good.
Ryzen, being the relatively power-hungry monster it is, demands a substantial amount of VRMs to operate effectively. Which is something you can’t easily pack into the ITX form factor without including a raised PCB, similar to what Asus used to do with its Impact series. And, secondly, outside of the Manta, there aren’t any cases that look good, have solid airflow, and support the liquid-cooling I want to introduce.
For the time being, at least, it looks as though I’m stuck with my NZXT S310 Elite. At least until another ITX chassis launches that offers the same flair and support as the Manta. Or perhaps a desk PC would fit the bill better? Hmm, now that sounds like a solid idea….